5 minutes to make a tactics change!?!?! Grrr....

Please note that approximately 75% of this post is me venting..

So I'm currently treading water in late October in my save, unbeaten at home, yet I've lost 6 in a row away. I've tried tweaking my tactics to get something out of my team, but no luck yet.

This particular game I just finished was away, with a sopping wet field, an underdog against the 3rd place team, and I get the equalizer at about the 70th minute.

The home team starts turning the screws offensively, I adjust, and seem to be holding them off. In about the 85th minute, my left-back attempts a disastrous back-pass that is to no one in particular. Thankfully, my goalie forces their striker into a mistake, and the possibility of picking up a point away from home remains.

On 89 minutes, the ref announces 6 minutes of injury time, and I notice the home team has gone to the dreaded 4-2-4. I switch my tactics to counter, also making sure to modify my passing style to short to avoid a repeat of what happened a few minutes ago.

So what happens? At the 94th minute, the engine is still preparing to implement my tactial changes from the 89th minute, and one of my centre-back makes another brainless too-long back-pass, this time to his defensive partner. They recover, and score in the 94th minute.

It's entirely possible that this would have happened anyways, and I'm just reacting the way any manager would after his team threw away a point like this. But how can you possibly counter the AI's 4-2-4 when the match engine takes so freaking long to make your switch?

Man, I needed that draw.

I've found that if you don't pause the game whilst you are making a tactical change, the switch goes through quicker. Try that.

I make a habit of checking for 4-2-4 at around 80 minutes, or even 75 minutes.

You definitely should be countering a possible 4-2-4 near the 80th minute, much sooner at least than the 89th. Sometimes they won't go 4-2-4 but they will go high attacking and long forward arrows on the wingers.

team talk all wrong away

They had the long arrows on, and I had gone to a more defensive set-up after I tied it up. There was 6 minutes of injury time, and they went to the 4-2-4 at about the 89th minute. I was happy that I was defending their attack properly, I wanted to make sure my defense weren't trying long, unnecessary passes on a very wet field, given the added pressure.

But it shouldn't take 5 minutes to make such a simple change, should it? That was more the point of my post.

from my point of view counterattack is not the best choice when u r leading and they turn to 4-2-4 offencive tactic

in my opinion replace one of ur 2 strikers by an anchor man

play a 4-1-4-1 -with ur left winger or right winger moving high up

and choose to slow down ur tempo to middle and time wasting+ mixed passing and a little bit wide tactic

this way ur deffenders wont suffer at all passing ball forward to any of ur 3 midfielders

also ur players will exchange the ball a lot and will try to set either ur wingers or striker into more attacking position

BTW u can play with attacking mentality and praise me for the result

last advice make on of ur 2 CM mark one of their 2 midfeilders and leave the anchorman free to help the deffence and make his mentality on deffensive mode with no forward runs

If you're interested in a successful tactic for countering the dreaded 4-2-4 then I suggest reading zagallo's 2-6-2 thread - it gives a lot of good theory as well as the tactic if you wish to download it. The shutdown version in the tactic pack has been especially good for me in not conceding against the 4-2-4

Originally posted by james_33:

If you're interested in a successful tactic for countering the dreaded 4-2-4 then I suggest reading zagallo's 2-6-2 thread - it gives a lot of good theory as well as the tactic if you wish to download it. The shutdown version in the tactic pack has been especially good for me in not conceding against the 4-2-4

Did you even read the original post? You can have the best 4-2-4 counter tactic in the world but it's useless if you can't implement it until after the AI scores.

This is somethimg that needs to be sorted out.

I have the team formation screen up during the game so i can counter when the ai change their tactics, but as the op says it is annoying that sometimes it takes so long for your change to occur.

My record is about 8 mins, luckily they didnt score in this time.

This is my one major grumble with the game. I understand that there is a very slight possibility that it would take 6 mins to get a sub on, but tactical changes should take place immediately. I would be like calling a player over to the line giving him instructions and telling him to tell everyone, it would take 2 mins at a stretch.